Wednesday, August 31, 2011

HDTVs soon to cost less than an iPad

As big-screen high-definition television sets become more and more commonplace in homes across the country, the prices of these sets continues to drop to record lows.

A recent report from Bloomberg suggests that during this quarter, the price of a standard 42-inch LCD HDTV will average $599 in the U.S. That's a 10 percent drop from this quarter of 2010. By the end of the year that average price is expected to drop to $578.

In comparison, a 32-gigabyte, WiFi iPad currently sells for $599 and hasn't changed since the first iPad was released in January of 2010.

Interestingly, all five of the largest TV manufacturers have not earned a profit from their TV businesses over the past year due primarily because of this steep decline in price.

Samsung offered the first 40" LCD TVs in 2002 for prices of roughly $8,000. Sharp's first LCD offerings (45") sold for $13,000.